grams are generally created with the needs of mainstream society in mind. Though these systems attempt to accommodate everyone, the unique challenges of serving marginalized populations make this difficult. And there is perhaps no population more challenging to assist in dying than the homeless. Yet this population needs support more than most others, says Wendy Muckle, executive director of Ot...

BACKGROUND Homelessness is associated with increased mortality, and some predictors of mortality have been previously identified. We examined the overall and cause-specific mortality among homeless men in Helsinki and the associations of social background and health service use with mortality. METHODS To assess cause-specific mortality in a competing risks framework, we performed a register-b...

In an epidemiological investigation of trench fever in Japan, we compared the seroprevalence of Bartonella quintana in homeless people and in the general population. In homeless rescue outreach programs held in Tokyo from May 2001 to March 2003, 151 blood samples were taken from non-hospitalized homeless people. The prevalence of IgM and IgG antibodies against B. quintana in these people was co...

BACKGROUND Homelessness is associated with increased risks of mortality but it has not previously been possible to distinguish whether this is typical of other socio-economically deprived populations, the result of a higher prevalence of morbidity or an independent risk of homelessness itself. The aim of this study was to describe mortality among a cohort of homeless adults and adjust for the e...

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have used administrative criteria to identify homelessness among U.S. Veterans. Our objective was to explore the use of these codes in VA health care facilities. We examined VA health records (2002-2012) of Veterans recently separated from the military and identified as homeless using VA conventional identification criteria (ICD-9-CM c...

There is a critical need for objective data to guide effective health promotion and care for homeless populations. However, many investigators exclude homeless populations from clinical trials due to practical concerns about conducting research with this population. This report is based on our experience and lessons learned while conducting two large NIH-funded randomized controlled trials targ...

This study focuses on the association between homeless veterans' prior utilization of medical, psychiatric, and substance abuse services and biopsychosocial characteristics reported at admission into a domiciliary care program. Given the large number of veterans in the US homeless population and their health care needs, understanding factors associated with health service use among homeless vet...

Over the years, the rate of youth homelessness in America has steadily risen, prompting the creation and subsequent revision of corrective policies. One such policy is the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act of 1974. The Act is not a cure-all for homelessness, but it does provide services and programs specifically designed to aid homeless youth. It has had some success, but not all homeless youth be...

OBJECTIVE To provide new evidence regarding the suitability of using quality of life (QoL) measurements in homeless people with schizophrenia, we assess the acceptability and psychometric properties of a specific QoL instrument (S-QoL 18) in a population of homeless people with schizophrenia, and we compare their QoL levels with those observed in non-homeless people with schizophrenia. METHOD...

OBJECTIVE This cross-sectional study explored differences in the impact of self-reported coping style, self-esteem and perceived support on the psychological adjustment of homeless and housed female youth. METHOD Data were obtained from homeless female youth (n = 72, M = 17.5 years) accessing an emergency shelter in a large Canadian urban centre and a comparison group of housed females (n = 1...